14-2: Proofreading
Some Advice on How to Proofread
The following paragraphs provide some ideas on how to go about proofreading a text.
Resources
You'll want to have a good dictionary and a thesaurus at this stage.
At a more advanced level, you can copy your own phrases and paste them in a search engine to see how other people write similar sentences.
Word processors and software offer writers the opportunity to check for certain types of errors. Be aware that these tools sometimes declare "false positives." In other words, they provide incorrect advice. Set the language of your text to "English" in your word processor.
Maintain a list of all of your weaknesses as a writer and refer to it while proofreading to make sure that they are absent.
Common Errors
Check your work for common errors. Even advanced Anglophone authors make these mistakes:
sentence fragments
run-on sentences
punctuation
Vocabulary
Do you use correct words? It's not because a word appears under a similar word in a thesaurus that it's the correct one.
Style Format and Instructions
Review your assignment's instructions and ensure that your work adheres to the physical format that was requested. Check word length, margins and font types.
Maintaining this website requires alerts and feedback from the students that use it when they see a problem or have a suggestion.
